Sometimes, bad weather when traveling can be a blessing in disguise.

Yesterday, I embarked on my first trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma in many years. I left my home in Los Angeles with a scheduled stopover in Dallas en route. I l landed safely in Dallas and made my way to my connection. The weather had alternate plans, and my connecting flight was delayed. I had just begun to absorb the realization that I wasn’t going to make the game in Tulsa when they cancelled the flight for good.

My options weren’t plentiful. Other flights to Tulsa were also cancelled, and the few that were left were completely booked. My only option was to rent a car and drive.

The spring and summer months are responsible for Oklahoma being known colloquially as “tornado alley.” From ask.com:

Tornadoes are most likely occur in Oklahoma between late March and August…Oklahoma is in the region known as Tornado Alley. More tornadoes strike Oklahoma City, the capital of the state of Oklahoma, than any other city in the United States.

This less than stellar weather would impact not only my flights, but my drive as well.

The journey on highway 75 made my jaw drop. It was one of the more gorgeous drives I’ve made. There was green everywhere, both on the earth and in the sky. The rain was coming down in buckets, covering everything from the endless plains and hills to the cows to the churches and “Jesus Saves” billboards. I observed rivers and creeks overflowing with life. Train tracks and bridges (I romanticize both, thanks pops) crossed substantial Southern Oklahoma turf.

For the first part of the drive, I observed the beauty, but distantly. I was, as usual, monitoring incoming notifications on my phone. But between the inability to charge before embarking due to the hectic travel from earlier and using the device for navigation, my phone ran out of batteries halfway through the drive.

Initially, I panicked due to the lack of access to email and text. I envisioned all of the people depending on me and the calls I’d be missing. This anxiety is no surprise, I was cutting my brain off from a fix. From the Atlantic:

Thanks to neuroscience, we’re beginning to understand that achieving a goal or anticipating the reward of new content for completing a task can excite the neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, which releases the neurotransmitter dopamine into the brain’s pleasure centers. This in turn causes the experience to be perceived as pleasurable…We now believe that the compulsion to continually check email, stock prices, and sporting scores on smartphones is driven in some cases by dopamine releases that occur in anticipation of receiving good news.

I thought about stopping and charging at a gas station to limit my risk, but the climate was dangerous. Every 5 minutes or so, a public service announcement would come over the radio urging me to take shelter as I would soon be swept away by a twister if I didn’t. I determined that stopping wasn’t a prudent decision.

As my heart beat slowed and my anxiety around missing correspondence diminished, my senses felt alive for the first time in quite a while. I recognized how infrequently I give my brain a break from the constant flood of data I digest on a daily basis. I had no choice but to disconnect, and for two hours, I felt alive. I blasted country music, rolled down the windows anytime the rain slowed enough to do so and took in the beauty of what surrounded me.

My road trip was a healthy reminder of recovery. The mind needs relaxation to fire optimally. Just as we can’t train with weights everyday if we expect our tissue to repair itself and become stronger, we must hunt opportunities to give our brains a breather and press pause on life, even if only for couple hours. Funny how if we don’t take it for ourselves, the universe seems to force our hand.

Strong mind,

Kap