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There are people who have no idea what they would do with themselves if they had a little under two weeks with no commitments, a car, a duffel bag, and a series of motel reservations making a loop around New England with a spur up into Maine.

I am not one of those people.

A cove ... somewhere. Near Camden? Probably near Camden. Linda Holmes/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Linda Holmes/NPR

On my Late Fall Foliage Solo Tour, of all the anxieties that occasionally gripped me, not knowing what to do with myself — by myself — was not among them. I examined racks of jewelry and adjusted room thermostats and had chocolate chip ice cream at a place my family used to go when I was a young teenager. (It's the same, except that now it's next to an enormous Walmart.) I read books. I had clam chowder four times and had breakfast at a little place right by Amherst populated by students, and I eavesdropped on a Rocklandite in a laundromat explaining that he'd gone mudding that weekend and needed a story to give his girlfriend about why the truck was all scuffed up. I walked a trail at Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park near Freeport and heard total, hum-less, fan-less silence, which I rarely do. I visited a cemetery where some of my relatives are buried. I dropped the valve cap into the wheel of my car while putting air in my tires, got distracted enough battling the air hose that I forgot to dig it back out, and happily found it peacefully hanging out inside the wheel cover many, many miles later when I remembered.

I spent Halloween on Cape Cod, where behind me, the door to wandering tourists was swinging shut for the season. I spent an evening in a Ramada with the power out, and I chatted with the Banana Man at the Kennebunk service plaza, and I managed to keep my composure and not crack up when I overheard a discussion at a Rockport Denny's in which a woman said, with a certain guilty, gossipy glee, "She worries so much about havin' lines on her face, but what about that mouth full of choppers? That's all I could see." ("Choppers," of course, was "chaw-pahs.") I walked down a steep trail at a botanical garden where, at the bottom, a nice lady comes and picks you up in a golf cart to haul you back up the hill. I tipped 50 percent to servers to whom I said "Just me!" when I asked for a table, who filled my coffee over and over because they had plenty of tables and it was foggy and gray outside. I took a picture of a butterfly I suspect has been photographed by thousands of tourists before me.

A butterfly takes it easy on some daisies at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Linda Holmes/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Linda Holmes/NPR

We have a certain cultural mistrust of solitude, I think. It is for weirdos and lost souls, spinsters and misfits. But in truth, I can't tell you what a luxury I think it is to be entitled to it. Most of the time, I want good company, like most people do. But the experience of earned, voluntary aloneness is, among other things, instructive. I don't think you can really understand how accustomed you are to being scheduled and operating off an internal to-do list at almost all times until you think to yourself, "My goal will be to get to Providence by 4," and then you think, "Why is there a goal?"

And then it begins to make you internally rebellious: What if I drove with no goal? What if I had nowhere to be all day until it was time to sleep and I discussed with no one where to stop and take a picture, where to have lunch, what shop to go in, or which way to turn on the trail? What would I do if I could do anything — in this micro-environment, in this moment, at the point of this particular pause, what is my wish?

Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park. Linda Holmes/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Linda Holmes/NPR

Because the experience of good company is in part the experience of matching your wishes to someone else's; that's part of what makes it great. You build a common wish with another person: to go somewhere, to meet, to have sushi instead of steak. And those shared wishes are profound.

But if you collaborate constantly, both professionally and personally, it's easy to forget what undiluted self-determination feels like, and there's something to be said for remembering.

While I was staying in Freeport, I realized that the clouds and rain that had accompanied the first few days on the road had broken, and I started to wonder if I could see stars. I don't see a lot of stars in my day-to-day; there's an awful lot of light pollution in my section of the East Coast, and if I'm being honest, I doubt I'd take the time to stare at them anyway. But on this particular night, I went out and waited for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, there were many, many, many stars. I decided to try to take a picture.

I am a casual hobbyist at best when it comes to complicated pictures of any kind. I play around — enough that I had a tripod and a remote shutter release in the car — but I didn't really have the right lens for this, and I wasn't really in the best place (hunkered down between two big evergreens in the darkest corner of the motel parking lot). I just wanted to see if I could do it. Had I had to explain it to someone else how long I was out there fiddling and turning dials and pushing buttons and counting seconds in my head, I would have felt silly. There is a diabolical internal voice that feels external and belongs to no one that says, in moments like this, "What are you doing? You are bent over a camera on a tripod in the dark, and you're all in black, meaning you really, really do appear to be skulking around like a crazy person, and this picture is going to have power lines in it anyway, and it won't be in focus because that's the part you haven't figured out, so it's not going to be a good picture anyway, so what are you doing?"

The luxury of solitude lies in hearing that, and training it to settle down. "I am taking a picture of these stars, and it's going to take me a bunch of tries, but eventually, I'm going to make it work because I have absolutely no responsibilities on this particular evening and I can stay out here until 3 in the morning if I feel like it."

It did not take until 3 in the morning. And it's not a good picture, but when I look at it, I remember in my fingers the precise temperature of the air, dropping the lens cap in the grass and feeling around for it, and wondering whether people in passing cars thought I was crazy. "Just me," I would have said with a wave.

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Stars in Freeport. Linda Holmes/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Linda Holmes/NPR

Stars in Freeport.

Linda Holmes/NPR

Betty White is a television pioneer. She's played everything from the star of the '50s sitcom Life with Elizabeth to the sweetly naive Rose from The Golden Girls.

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Sixty years later, she's still in show business, on the cast of TV Land's Hot in Cleveland — as well as innumerable guest appearances.

White's show-biz career blossomed just as television began to take off in Los Angeles, where she went to high school. She happened to be in the right place at exactly the right time.

"I was in the graduation play from high school, and the president of our senior class and I sang The Merry Widow and did a little dance," Betty White says. "I think that's when the show biz bug bit me — and they haven't been able to get rid of me since."

'People Either Sell Their Television Sets or Tune You In'

White's big break came when a Los Angeles disc jockey named Al Jarvis asked if she wanted to be his "Girl Friday" on his new talk show, Hollywood on Television.

"Sure, Friday, that's great," White says. "Well, what he meant, and I didn't realize was, Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday."

She was on TV for 5 1/2 hours a day, six days a week.

Every broadcast was live.

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Betty White (left) stands alongside actor Eddie Albert in front of the a KLAC-TV camera during a broadcast of the live talk show, 'Hollywood on Television,' in 1952. Nigel Dobinson/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Nigel Dobinson/Getty Images

Betty White (left) stands alongside actor Eddie Albert in front of the a KLAC-TV camera during a broadcast of the live talk show, 'Hollywood on Television,' in 1952.

Nigel Dobinson/Getty Images

"Whatever happened, you had to handle it. There was never any rehearsal or script or anything," she says. "Whoever came in that door was on, and you were interviewing them."

She first started appearing on Hollywood in Television in 1949. Three years later, White co-founded Bandy Productions, becoming one of the first female producers in Hollywood.

With her production company, she went on to star in her sitcom Life with Elizabeth, and her own daytime show, The Betty White Show.

On The Betty White Show, just like on Hollywood in Television, White had to work with whatever she got. In one of her live interviews, she talked with a 10-year-old boy named Ralph; he responded to her questions with grunts or one-word answers.

CaptainBijou.com / Youtube/YouTube

White promoted a supplement called Geritol on The Betty White Show in the '50s.

"The beauty of it," she says, "was if it didn't go well, it was over."

"People either sell their television sets or tune you in."

Still In The Business

White says every now and then, she'll catch one of her old programs being rebroadcast on TV.

"You think, 'My God, I had hair then!' " she says.

At 92 years old, she says, there are so many memories to relive.

"To be able to talk to that camera — the camera became your best friend," White says. "You're looking into that little camera lens and they're looking into your soul, because they're right into your eyes. You can't be phony. You can't fake it."

"I'm so lucky to still be blessed to be working in it," she says. "I love television."

Betty White

Los Angeles

TV

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is one of the most powerful politicians in America. She's the top-ranking woman in the House GOP, and her political ambitions and trajectory have been debated everywhere from Capitol Hill to the pages of Glamour magazine. But when she walks into locally owned businesses like Maid Naturally in Spokane, Wash., she's just Cathy.

In the final week before the election, she stopped by the Spokane-based cleaning business and sits down to chat with co-founders Ruthanne Eberly and Heather Brown. McMorris Rodgers puts them at ease quickly, and before long the three women are swapping stories about what it's like to balance family and work.

"Do you have some tips now as to how to keep employees longer?" McMorris Rodgers asks the pair, who launched their business together in 2006. Since then they've expanded, moving from working out of their homes to a larger space.

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Eberly and Brown agree that keeping their employees around, especially in a business where people tend to come and go, comes down to building strong relationships.

That's something McMorris Rodgers understands. She's built a career on it.

"I find myself reminding people that Congress is also built on relationships," she tells them. "It's about building relationships. It's like anything you do in life, and you have to make that a priority."

McMorris Rodgers has a few priorities: Representing Eastern Washington in the House — a job she's held for a decade — and heading up the House Republican Conference where she is one of just 19 women.

The 45-year-old also has three young children. Her 1-year-old daughter flew cross-country with her during her most recent trip back to Spokane.

"I was single when I was elected, then I got married," she tells Eberly and Brown. "So I kind of eased into it. Got used to the business up-front, then I got married, added the kids."

This is how McMorris Rodgers connects with the women she meets on the trail, the very people her party needs to attract. She's down-to-earth, folksy even, and she makes everything personal.

But she is also politically savvy.

McMorris Rodgers says she never dreamed she'd be in politics herself, but she was appointed to the Washington statehouse at the age of 25. She went on to beat two members of the leadership to become the state's first female minority leader. Then, she decided to run for Congress.

"I just decided I was going to muster up all the courage I had, be a risk-taker, go see what I could do," she says.

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First elected to Congress in 2004, McMorris Rodgers is set to easily win re-election to a sixth term. But she's not taking that for granted. All in one day this week, she participated in a debate with Democrat Joe Pakootas, visited local businesses, chatted with eighth graders at a middle school and fired up a Republican women's group.

She often brings up her roles as a wife and mother while campaigning, saying the challenges she faces are just like any other working mom in America. But she bristles at the notion that she's "window dressing" for a party trying to refresh its brand.

"That's what the critics like to suggest," she says when asked about the public debate over whether her rise is simply because she's a woman. "Even when I was asked to give the response to the State of the Union this year, there were some that immediately started saying 'Well, it's only because she was a woman' versus that I was someone who could really connect with people or that I could deliver an effective message on behalf of the Republicans."

McMorris Rodgers says she wants to see more women run — and get elected — to Congress. That's why she's taken on a leadership role, raising money for female Republicans and mentoring them, too.

"So many women have never even considered running for office themselves. They think that's something someone else does," she says.

McMorris Rodgers says she knows what that's like. Before she decided to run for Congress, she'd been thinking about getting out of politics.

Now, a decade later, she says she doesn't want to be a "seat warmer." She wants to maximize her opportunities and her influence.

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She chose not to enter the race to be House Republican whip after Eric Cantor, who was defeated in a primary, chose to leave his leadership post. She says she's excited for another year serving as GOP conference chair.

But there appears to be a path open for McMorris Rodgers. The question is: does she want it?

Asked point-blank what her next chapter looks like, she says "we'll see."

"One thing about serving in Congress, it kind of comes in these two-year chunks," she says. "For the next Congress, I'm seeking to continue to serve as conference chair. And we'll see what other opportunities come. So much of that is being the right person at the right time."

If you've enjoyed the battle for control of the Senate over the past many months, here's some good news: the drama could well spill over into next month – or even next year.

While Republicans are increasingly optimistic — and Democrats, pessimistic — about their prospects Tuesday, there are plausible scenarios that could have America waiting well beyond Nov. 4 to know which party will have a Senate majority.

Alaska is a key state for Republican hopes for a takeover and is also potentially a close race, meaning the result of its election "night" might not be clear until all the ballots in the far-flung state are tallied. "Alaska could take a week or more to get their votes in," said Justin Barasky, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Even with Alaska settled, there's still the matter of Louisiana and Georgia. Both states require a runoff election if no candidate wins a majority on Election Day, and polling suggests runoffs are more likely in those states than not.

Louisiana's runoff would be Dec. 6, but Georgia's runoff isn't until Jan. 6. That would be three days after the start of the new Congress on Jan. 3.

Apart from the prospect of both parties focusing massive television ad campaigns and voter turnout drives on just two states, the timing raises this unusual prospect: Kentucky GOP Senator Mitch McConnell rising to Senate majority leader – for exactly one day, before losing it back to Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

It's a longshot, but it's not completely far-fetched. For it to happen, Republicans would have to have a disappointing election night, yet wind up on New Year's Day with a 50-49 advantage with the Georgia runoff outstanding. [McConnell also has to win re-election, of course.]

The Constitution says each new Congress is to begin on Jan. 3, but with it falling on a Saturday next year, leaders will more than likely agree to push it to Jan. 5 or 6. The senators would convene, get sworn in to their terms but what happens next wouldn't be known until polls closed in Georgia on the evening of Jan. 6.

At that point, if Republican David Perdue has won, McConnell would have 51 senators and become majority leader. But if Democrat Michelle Nunn were to win, the 50-50 tie would give the deciding vote to Democratic Vice President Joe Biden – and the majority leader title back to Reid.

Republicans are confident that their candidates will prevail in both runoffs, should it come to that, because their supporters are more used to turning out, even in typically low-turnout contests like runoffs.

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