Driving Across the Country, Again
I first drove from Massachusetts to California to be a sophomore at Occidental College when I was twenty-one. I did that trip with my friend Erin, and suffice it to say we stopped at a place called Beaver Trap Inn for a beer and didn’t know to think twice or even once about it. As with everything we ever did, things went fine—better than fine. For example, it was the first place either of us had ever gone where the male crowd was determined we were models. We felt like models in the middle of the country in this dark place where the men looked like they spent most of their paychecks on beers.
Last year when I drove from Massachusetts to California with Bird (I think this was my twelfth time across), we did it in four days and some change. Bird had gotten sick in the middle of the night in some weird hotel that looked decked out from someone’s grandma’s basement, and so I’d packed us up because I didn’t know what else to do, and we pretty much drove straight from Iowa on because all I could think was that I had to get to Santa Cruz so I could get him to the vet. He’d make a noise and I’d pull over and he’d evacuate and we’d keep driving. Car sickness did not enter my addled mind. I’d figured he’d eaten something gross in the parking lot of our Iowa hotel because he had.
This time I planned a retreat in Salt Lake City to break up the trip. This time I had the intention of stopping at least once an hour to stop and smell the roses or, at the very least, to pee. I had intended to do a better job with food for me, but I just don’t care about vegetables when I’m on the road. It’s Taco Bell 100% of the time except for that glitch somewhere around Iowa where Taco Bells were closed and a place called Taco John’s (where you could get cream in your soda) was the alternative. I did have a chicken burrito at Taco John’s, and it was saucy and delicious and something I would gladly never eat again. At least Taco Bell didn’t put on airs to try to taste scary delicious. At least I didn’t have to worry about where the chicken came from when I got two bean burritos with no onions at Taco Bell. I also knew where the cheese sauce came from—some big vat of chemicals. Without doing any research so I know I’m probably wrong, I was fairly confident no animals were hurt in the making of those limp, mashed-bean filled tortilla logs.
Driving across the country as a blood sport—how fast can I do it?—reminds me of running the mile. The first quarter, your legs are fresh and the terrain feels new. The second quarter, you are beginning to wonder if you didn’t make a mistake joining the track team. The third quarter, you put your head down and try to stop all thought. The fourth quarter, you keep your head down and think only of the finish line and try not to hate glare the people yelling at you to go faster because you are almost done. It’s about survival. It’s about getting to the fucking end.
When people say, Oh, you are driving across the country! What an adventure! There will be so many places to see! I know we are from different traveling planets. I don’t drive for pleasure. Driving involves sitting, and sitting gets really old after about forty-five minutes. I understand what they are talking about—this is an amazing country and the topography changes quickly and almost violently (unless you are in Iowa where the topography just grows corn). There is so much to see. The thing is, driving across the country can also become hypnotic. The road does not say, Take a break, look around. The road says, Keep going. You’re crushing it.
In Wyoming, I saw a sign for the Wyoming National Cemetery, and I broke through my hypnotic state and took the exit to give Bird and me a break. Why not stop and say thank you, I thought. Wyoming was big sky with lots of wind and a sharply winding road. The cemetery was a small thing with its rows of white gravestones and a sign clearly stating no dogs, so I drove back past a deserted greenhouse to park next to a car I’d spotted on my way in. It turned out I was in some sort of spread out, grassy nature preserve with different kinds of trees sprinkled around, all marked by type. There was another sign saying no dogs, but this one I ignored because, unlike at the graveyard, there were no workers around.
I maybe could live here, I thought, the sky so big, the eerie white wind turbines slowly turning in the distance. I thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the prairie. I could be like Laura and Mary and Ma and Pa and Almanzo Wilder, I thought. I could have a pig (only I would not kill it and make a balloon out of its bladder—I would just support it in being a pig). There was a woman walking towards us on the road, and we fell into conversation and began to walk together because this is what strangers do in the fantasy of road trips. She told me I was in the High Plains Arboretum, and that decades ago this place had been created to see what plants and trees could grow in the Wyoming climate.
We talked about what we did for work as we walked through this landscape that was so familiar to her and so strange to me. We talked about wind and weather. Her father had died within the year, and my dad had died almost two years ago, and we talked about the sharp grief of losing a parent.
If I had not been curious about what was off the main road, I would never have met her.
I need to remember this.
Pick up your head. Slow down. Look around. Lean into curiosity. Life is so fast. You don’t have to be, too.
