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July 2006 - Article 3
 The inspiration to drive around the country didn't come from sucking spring air in April after a bleak winter. It wasn't some documentary on National Geographic. I hadn't read a book by John Muir or seen the photographs of Ansel Adams. I didn't even know who those people were at the time. The truth is, I'd been inspired to go around the country by a pizzeria job. Up until about a year or so before the trip, I never even considered the idea of driving around the country, though of course I had some knowledge of interstates. I'd taken the obligatory trips to Disneyworld when I was a kid, and had gone to Williamsburg, Virginia as well. But as an adult, the closest I had ever come to even entertaining the idea had been when I was twenty, and thought about driving to Montana. In the end, the trip never took fruition; vague fears about the car (it had only 37,000 miles on it), and the fear of leaving the stable life killed it dead in the tracks. So was any further idea of long road travel, that is until my mid-twenties, when I encountered a life-altering experience and a fast food job. The combination provided a breeding ground for the trip I was going to take. It wasn't until my father died when I was twenty-four that I had any chance of breaking the pattern I was on. Up until then, I was doing the obligatory grown-up things that I thought I was supposed to be doing, like going to college and thinking about all the so-called mature things I was supposed to be doing once I graduated. The road of my future was already strange and hazy, probably owing to the fact that my mother had died just before I graduated high school, and my father had been pretty much sick since then. But I went to class and got my degree. I was now supposed to know what I was doing, so I started to send out resumes to weird offices that specialized in objectives that put me to sleep. But they had benefits and great salaries, which was supposed to be a good thing, or so I was told. Then my father died, three months after I graduated, and all that changed for me. You hear it all of the time; after people go through a trauma, they realize all of life is precious. It is like in a crisis, either a person falls apart, or realizes new possibilities. To say that the search for success became pointless because of depression wouldn't fit. It was just with the experience of my last parent's death, what society expected of me made even less sense to me than before. I've heard a lot of lady travelers, such as Isabella Bird, from earlier eras who'd spent time taking care of their parents. When their parents died, felt free to roam the world. This is what happened to me. All of the sudden, society's constraints weren't as imperative to me, because by losing my last parent, its strongest force was gone. All sorts of possibilities that had been lurking in the background while I dragged myself to class and pretended I was a serious student were now allowed to thrive. In a matter of a year, my husband and I purchased a green Chevy van and a black cairn terrier whom we named MacGyver, which were two of the ingredients that became part of the recipe of the trip around the country. We the van initially for a number of trips from our home to southern Florida, where we had family. The thirst of the road began once I drank from the chalice of these trips. The plans to work in an office disappeared even quicker than that. After all, I wanted to write. I didn't want to plod away in some weird office and then be too tired from my so-called glorious career to write anything at night. As long as the bills were paid, who cared where I worked? I walked into a fast food store and got a job right on the spot. There, I met several people who had spent time on the road, going to national parks. One person had spent six weeks on the road for her honeymoon in a camper. Another person had lived in a van for eight months, getting work on the road when she ran out of money. Much of the time, she stayed in national parks. For someone parched for the road, it was a cocktail too tempting to pass up. The road that they took was the one that I wished to embark upon as well. So, now inspired, the planning began. Since coming back from the trip, I've read travelogues about those who have driven around the country. Many of them seem to have the history and geology of every destination that they went to memorized. On the contrary, I didn't know much about the places I'd be going other than they sounded like great places to go to, places that weren't here, places that were Out There. I wouldn't know for sure what it was I was getting into. And that was part of the adventure. The inspiration had come from those who had gone before me. And if it came from a fast food job, then that was fine by me. It was just another clue to me that gems of wisdom could come from anywhere along the road of life, a reminder to not judge the journey. With that, I was one step closer to closing the door to Here and going Out There. |