My mother raised me to fear traveling.
She told me that traveling was dangerous for a woman, though in her mind it was safe for me to drive the three-and-a-half hours it took to visit her in upstate New York, where she lived after she and my father divorced and before her death in 2011. Otherwise, my mother advised that I never go anywhere, especially by myself. She said that if I pulled into a rest stop while traveling, chances were high that I'd be raped, abducted and killed. I believed her.
