We’re listening to a Moe CD, and while I’ve never really been able to figure out exactly what Ashley likes in a band, I actually sense an attunement, a slightly piqued interest that suggests she might just get along well with this one. We go through it twice more. I like to listen to an album on repeat, and not only when they’re fresh out of the plastic because I’m afraid of missing something on the first listen: maybe a piece of conversation drowns out a lick or lyric that would link me to a song forever.
Super thick chunks of broken life and reality,
at the dinner table come to me,
say goodbye, my friend, my exit's here,
my road's so long, a million miles or so.
at the dinner table come to me,
say goodbye, my friend, my exit's here,
my road's so long, a million miles or so.
I get the same feeling when I travel. When you first visit somewhere new, a lot of time and energy is spent just trying to figure out exactly where you are on the map. You aren’t able to learn where you fit in or where the best haunts are because you’re too busy just feeling out the borders and the bigger picture. Depending on where you’re acclimating too, it can take anywhere from days to months. Not just to know little pieces of a place, but to know it well, and understand where you fit into its frame.
I’ve been to Colorado more than ten times, but I’ve never driven and seen the country’s midsection. For Ashley it’s her second trip in as many years. Being a repeat visitor provides an alternative perspective, for better or worse, on very local happenings. I’ve seen the Denver suburbs get closer to the airport every year when I never noticed the same movement in my own hometown.
I keep coming back to the mountains because it makes me happy there; every time I’m more in tune with the people, and I know how to alter my own mannerisms to better fit in. When I’m in Colorado I relax my attitude and keep my ski pants on late into the afternoons, less worried about the hours that pass. Each time I leave someplace I take a little piece of that identity with me. I’ve never stayed for weeks like this trip, and I wonder how much more of Colorado I’ll bring back with me.
Though we’re determined to move quickly, a road trip wouldn’t live up to its billing without emergency bathroom trips and abbreviated stretching sessions. But the land is flattening across Indiana, and as it unrolls, greater spaces open up between houses and potential rest stops. Green is slowly fading to varying browns and yellows with farmhouses planted here or there, farther and farther from the road.
There are endless power lines parallel to the road, wiring the world together. Though they sometimes drift across empty fields, they always return to the highway’s side, replacing trees in the landscape. There are occasionally flashing blue and red lights. We’re glad it’s not us pulled over on the shoulder, causing the breach of monochrome rusted ceilings and despairing silos that match the desolate ground of winter in the Midwest. The whole world looks dead and abandoned making me wonder how some maintain lives here.
Pieces of straw stick like splinters from the upturned land, remnants of what was alive and flourishing a couple months before. Were the people that plow this land as filled with life? As rain comes suddenly, spitting on our windshield, the only sign of activity comes from a groups of cows that appear on the side of the road – brown, spotted, black – all cold I’m sure.
Low fences divide empty fields. Everything looks toyish from the road. Peoples’ homes are just depraved dollhouses with play trucks sitting in driveways, miniature against the near infinite land spreading in all directions. Sprinkler systems sprawl over acres like a dragon lounging over its treasure, providing precious lifeblood to the farmland.
Towns appear in all shapes and sizes. One we come across, whose name I’ll never know, is undeserving of marking on a map. Its vitals are all there, a beautiful building housing god and an apportioned area for the deceased followers of that same higher power. I can’t see more than several houses so it must have taken generations to fill that space. And then there’s more emptiness, as if someone stuck a tourniquet on the end of the little development, hardly disturbed by four lanes of asphalt.
The sun finally shows its face as signs tell us our next big target is Chicago and there is uncertainty about our next move. Ashley and I have this strange disconnection sometimes when neither of us wants to offend the other with a decision, or set something in motion the other might not like. So we both say we’d like to do something, but it doesn’t really matter if we do it or not, but it wouldn’t be bad if we did. In this way, we tortuously decided to go to Chicago for their world famous pizza. At the last chance before we’d have to make a U-turn, we veer off north towards the Windy City.
Chicago lives up to its nickname; it is absolutely frigid. Once we’re into the city, we’re a little lost and getting testy with each about where to park. The criss-cross of one way roads and no turn signs can be confusing in any city, even for long time residents. For tourists it can be a true test of patience. Finally, Ashley pulls into an underground lot and I’m not happy with her choice. She fires back at my stubborn attitude and things begin deteriorating on both sides. I think we’re both fraying from the feeling of limbo that comes with being in between departure and arrival, where no matter how fast you’re moving you’re not really going anywhere.
We try to shelve our emotions in the car. A beer helps relieve the aching closeness of the car. A smile finally cracks across Ashley’s face underneath lose wisps of her light brown hair. The pizza served at the Exchequer was too big for a family of five much less the two of us. Even I couldn’t put a dent in this thing and I usually claim I could stomach a whole horse. We box up the food and take a little hike around the area, holding hands while huddled inside our jackets. We crane our necks and admire the Sears Tower, with spires festively lit for the holidays.
I decide that Chicago’s not a terribly bad looking city except for the aging L Train that’s bridges look like they might collapse at any moment. Frozen, we make our way back to escape from the parking garage before the next hour kicks in on our meter. It takes some twisting and turning to find our way from the clutches of the city, but eventually our car with Virginia plates and Colorado bound skis is aimed in the right direction.
Opening the door of the Motel 6 in the morning unveils an alien scene. The sun is shining over Davenport, Iowa. A late arrival prevented any bearing on the local area, but there’s not much to see. We slip away without the front desk woman knowing two of us stayed for the price of one, a trick that seemed deviously juvenile yet oddly satisfying.
I’m disappointed in passing the mighty Mississippi River at night, and we briefly consider backtracking. I wanted to channel some of Twain into my spirit, and I promise myself I’ll stop on the way home to inspect the mythical landmark that cuts open the middle of the country.
In some way I think we all want to be part of the myth, or at least see its defining features with our own eyes to try and soak up some mystical feeling. It’s the same way people try to impart James Joyce’s “Ulysses” on themselves by retracing the immortalized steps of Stephen Dedalus. For just a moment I want to make the carelessness of Jack Johnson’s music my own, or to have the beauty of an image from National Geographic embedded in my own life, which if just fleeting in time, may never escape my memory.
Occasionally over the day and a half of driving, suspicious of my roof rack, I glance up at the ski tips probing above the top of the windshield. We’re somewhere in Nebraska when I notice their absence and whip the car on to the shoulder. I knew they hadn’t come completely off because there was no devastation behind us.
Somehow the blowing crosswind and the pressure tearing over the top of the car had only dislodged one of the four hooks, which is a near miracle. If something happened to the skis, my reaction wouldn’t be far from suicidal. We try to reinforce the rack’s hold and give it one more chance, but fifteen minutes later it comes loose again. It’s our first real mishap and the skis have to come inside the car, taking up a little more of our already tiny personal space.
I had no concept of the temperamental weather marauding across the Great Plains. No wonder no one lives here. First of all, I want to cry because I’m bored to tears from looking at desolate farmland for over ten hours. Second, it’s fucking arctic, with blasting winds worse than Chicago’s. Even the cattle must be frozen and tired of the scenery. I daydream of what it would be like standing out there all day, gnawing at stale grass. I think I’d beg some mischievous teenager to come tip me over and put me out of my misery.
Numb, we hardly notice the day pass. It feels like the sun barely rose before again retreating from the sky. The monotony of the scene outside the car’s window has made its passengers a little quiet, and gives us time to linger on strange thoughts. I can’t help but imagine the car breaking down. Suddenly there isn’t anyone on the road to help us and out of the darkness a mysterious figure appears offering a hand. Before we know it the torture begins.
Without reason I lower the window and tilt my head up towards the sky that’s sparkling like shattered glass on the pavement. I’ve probably never seen as many stars in all the nights of my life combined. I let out as primal a scream as I can conjure up, scaring Ashley into swerving the car before yelling at me to stop. I tuck back inside, red flushing my face around a smile. There aren’t any headlights in sight. No one could hear me screaming, and it was both terrifying and thrilling – the absolute emptiness.
Even though it was another two and a half hours to Denver, the sign welcoming us inside the state limits of Colorado forces a pent-up sigh of relief from deep inside both of us. And there greeting us was an enormous sign in the distance reading, “Merry Christmas. Eat Beef.”
The remaining hours on the road towards Denver were spent frantically calling everyone I know that resides or potentially resides in Colorado. I hadn’t made arrangements earlier and what started as a significant list of contacts dwindled quickly – some people didn’t even live there anymore. I can’t imagine this trip without the aid of a cell phone. So much more would have surprising, but at the same time so many things would be left undiscovered or not arranged. Only a couple years ago I would have had to plot this beforehand or, god forbid, use a pay phone. Expecting everything to untangle itself and fall into place en route would have been a stretch.
Technology makes travel a distant operation. Once, you had to talk to people; now, you find the nearest Starbucks with wireless internet to search Google for your travel needs. You find maps and restaurants and deals on lift tickets without ever talking to a human being. More than ever, tourists remain separated from the local culture they’re visiting, and more isolated from experiencing the community they’re sharing. Travel can more easily turn into a selfish and unenlightening experience that I’m desperately trying to avoid.
New technology has both benefits and pitfalls. Access to information and experience is unparalleled in history. Planes carry people across oceans in a matter of hours; electronic streams transport data in seconds. One can settle for what they might feel is the whole story in the pictures and stories available with the click of a button and the powering of a screen. We can see videos from some of the world’s remotest areas – see the people, hear their voices and think that we know them.
There are online communities established across every time zone uniting fellow travelers and easing some of their difficulties. There are networks of people offering up free space on their living room floors, futons and spare mattresses across the world. No one has much of an excuse not to see the world for themselves, to touch it and smell it, to hear the intonations of foreign tongues even if they’re indecipherable. I think that’s why driving seemed so appealing, so I couldn’t skip the in between Virginia and Colorado. I’ve fast forwarded past the middle of my own country many times, but watching it go by unites the end pieces of movement.
Well into the evening, no one had answered the phone. We were approaching Denver, and I had no idea where to stay aside from a pricey hotel. I must have made twenty calls in a half an hour, chatting with answering machines and missing returned calls. Anxiously tapping the steering wheel, I finally get a human response from Jeff Rodine.
We’ve had a long friendship, often united by snow. Jeff moved away from Virginia halfway through seventh grade, and I made my first trip to Colorado at the end of that year. I’ve returned frequently since, sometimes going months without talking to Jeff. Our friendship always rekindled when flakes started falling from the sky, just in time for us to arrange a ski trip and catch up on the year gone by.
Tonight, he had just touched down in Denver after visiting his parents in Phoenix. They had arranged a hotel for the night before he moved into his apartment the next day and after hearing my frantic message he insisted we stay with him at the small cost of a twelve pack.
Though it required no physical exertion, the last two days of have left Ashley and I exhausted. We had split the driving, both giving each other chances to rest our eyes from the constant strain of prolonged staring in the same direction, only occasionally broken by a glance in the rearview or a wave at a passing stranger with a familiar license plate. After arriving at the hotel, we both quickly lose consciousness.
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