I don’t think David and I will ever tire of road trips.
There’s a lot going on inside that car when we travel. More than I realized until I started trying to explain why we love it so much.
The Road According to David
David and I experience the road differently.
He’s been riding motorcycles for more than fifty years, so I think there’s something in him that’s always been connected to the road itself. He notices things I don’t. He feels the way the bike settles, the changes in the pavement, the curve ahead.
That connection to the road carried over to four wheels. The Turbo came into David’s life in 2018, before I knew him.
Our part of the story started with Skittles, our 2026 Porsche Cayenne S—Dolomite Silver outside, with a Blackberry and Slate interior. A couple of months later, we got Silver Ghost together.
By then, David already had years of knowing what a Porsche could do. I was getting to know both the cars and the man who loved them.
David understands the Porsche in a way I don’t. I don’t have the same feelings about Porsche that he does, but I understand the significance and brilliance of the machine. I appreciate it—a lot.
It isn’t a status symbol to either of us, and it certainly isn’t simply a beautiful car. It’s an extraordinary machine, and David understands what it’s capable of.
He feels what it’s doing beneath us, what happens when it settles into a curve, what the road is asking of it and what the car gives back.
I understand now why David loves the 911.
What you should know about David is that he is extremely intentional about almost everything he does.
There’s a reason why he wears Adidas and Levi’s. Why he rides Indians. Why he buys Green Giant instead of Great Value.
And there’s a reason he drives a 911.
David always says, “When you’re eating, eat. When you’re sleeping, sleep. When you’re watching TV, shut the fuck up and watch TV.”
So you can probably guess what he says and thinks about driving.
When David’s driving, he’s driving.
Rarely does he take his eyes off the road or the mirrors. Maybe it’s a motorcycle thing. Maybe it’s a military thing.
Maybe he’s just ignoring me.
Nope. He’s focused.
And that’s the funny part. We can be having a conversation about almost anything—physics, politics, music, math—and he’s completely engaged. But his eyes never stop scanning or assessing.
Road. Mirrors. Traffic. Next curve. Back to the mirrors.
He always seems to know what’s around us.
The 911 isn’t about showing anyone what he drives. It’s about what the car is. What it was designed to do. The way it responds. The way it connects the driver to the road.
That matters to David.
And once you understand that about him, the Porsche makes perfect sense.
Now the next chapter is the Targa 4 GTS. I’m beginning to understand how all those years—on motorcycles and behind the wheel—have shaped what he wants from it.
Which also explains why it took him forever to plan it.
Nothing about that car was casual.
Every choice had an intent, a reason.
He thought about what belonged on it, what didn’t, what should stand out and what should stay understated.
That’s David.
Intentional.
Sometimes—maddeningly so.
But I love that about him.
The Same Road, Differently
While he’s paying attention to what the Porsche is doing—I’m watching verdant trees give way to red dirt, black dirt, sand and stone. I’m looking at mountains and thinking about how I’d paint them. I notice an old building, a field, the color of the sky against a ridgeline.
We’re both looking at the same world through the same windshield, just taking different things from it.
Sometimes one of us spots something interesting and points it out, just in case the other missed it.
“Did you see that?”
And sometimes he will ask:
“Did you feel that?”
I’m learning to pay attention to those things too.
He’s feeling the road. I’m taking in the view. And somewhere in the middle, we find little ways to stay connected.
David has both hands on the steering wheel, but sometimes his right hand finds mine. Other times it rests on my knee. Or I’ll rest my hand on his shoulder.
That really matters to me.
It isn’t just something affectionate we do without thinking.
It’s part of the trip. Every trip.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives
Music is part of it too.
A very big part.
We listen to a pretty wide range of music when we travel, the deep cuts of our favorite artists. Not the songs that are the hits to sell the album, but the music that actually defines the album.
Sometimes one of us hears something in a song the other one didn’t notice. Sometimes the music seems to fit the road so perfectly that the two become a single memory.
Other times we turn it down and talk.
And sometimes it’s quiet.
His hand in mine. The music playing. The landscape changing. The road moving beneath us.
We’re talking, laughing, arguing about something stupid, or not saying anything at all.
We’re together.
Having the time of our lives—the life we always knew was out there, but didn’t fully realize until the moment we met.
Cars Have Always Been There
And movement has always meant something to me.
There’s a car in almost every one of my biggest, brightest memories.
Not every memory.
But an awful lot of them.
When I was a child, we lived in Sacramento, California, and my grandparents lived in Oklahoma. Once a year, our family made that trip on Route 66.
Five kids. Mom and Dad. California to Oklahoma and back again.
I remember roadside picnics with bologna sandwiches and Shasta soda. I remember one trip when we borrowed one of those enormous three-seat station wagons from the 1960s—the kind with the rear seat facing backward.
Naturally, all five kids fought over who got to sit back there.
I think that may have been the last summer all five of us kids traveled together with Mom and Dad.
Funny what stays with you.
Not the mileage.
Not where we stopped for gas.
Bologna sandwiches. Shasta soda. A backward-facing seat.
And all of us still together.
The Duster That Was Obviously Mine
Then there was the green Plymouth Duster.
My father brought it home on my birthday when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen. Brand new.
We’d never owned a new car.
So naturally, I concluded that Dad had bought it for me.
Obviously.
It was my birthday. I was going to turn sixteen eventually. He came home with a new car. What other possible explanation could there be?
Never mind that we didn’t have much money.
Never mind that my four older brothers and sisters hadn’t been given cars.
In my teenage mind, the evidence was overwhelming.
The Duster was mine.
It wasn’t.
The GOAT
Then came my brother’s cars.
He worked two or three jobs and managed to own a 1960 Ford Falcon and a 1968 GTO. He couldn’t afford the insurance and gas for both, so we struck a deal.
I had a little job as a hostess at Happy Steak. I paid the insurance, and I got to drive the GTO to high school during the day. He got it in the evenings for dates.
Let me tell you something.
Driving a GTO to high school?
I was the shit.
David still tells me I need three little flies tattooed on my hip.
Three flies!
Because that apparently would make me officially ‘the shit’. (It’s under consideration!)
That was one beautiful car.
Until the afternoon I walked out of school and it was gone.
I knew immediately what had happened.
Someone had stolen the GTO.
There were no cell phones. I couldn’t call anybody. I didn’t know what to do. I remember sitting on the steps outside school and bawling.
Cars pulled out of the parking lot one after another.
Students disappeared.
I sat there crying.
Eventually, almost every car was gone.
Except one.
A stinkin’ blue Ford Falcon.
My brother had come to school, taken the GTO and left me the Falcon.
Without telling me.
He got an earful when I finally got home.
When Driving Meant Leaving
Cars became something else for me as I got older.
An escape, maybe.
When things got really bad and I couldn’t figure out what to do next, there was always one thing I knew how to do:
Grab the keys.
Drive.
Sometimes that meant driving around for a while.
Sometimes it meant driving across the country.
Twice in my adult life, that’s exactly what I did. I got in the car and drove across America.
There’s something about driving that lets my brain do two things at once.
Part of me is completely present in what’s happening around me.
Another part of my thoughts simply wanders.
Dreaming.
Painting pictures I haven’t painted yet.
For once, I don’t have to figure anything out.
The world would change outside the windshield, and my busy mind became quiet enough to see it.
That may be why the road has always mattered to me.
Now I’m Going Somewhere
The road means something so different now.
I’m not running anymore.
I’m not escaping.
I’m living.
And I get to share it—with David.
It’s always been a good life.
Now it’s my best life, shared.
Maybe that’s what changed.
The road was always there.
What was missing was David.
Now I’m sitting next to a man who spent fifty years learning to feel the road in his own way, and somehow I get to see it through his eyes too.
And he gets to see it through mine.
6 Behind
Maybe that’s what we’re actually trying to share with 6 Behind.
Not simply where we went.
Not simply what we drove.
Not even whether the road was spectacular.
What the whole ride felt like.
The car.
The music.
The scenery.
The memories.
The conversation.
The quiet.
His hand holding mine.
And whatever is waiting around the next curve.
Maybe you’ll appreciate the cars.
Maybe you’ll recognize some of the roads.
Maybe you’ll travel along vicariously.
Or maybe you’ll simply like David and me.
We don’t really know yet.
This is our attempt to share some of it
and live it at the same time.
Six cylinders behind us. The road ahead.